Citropten alleviates acute and recurrent colitis via blockage of NF-κB and JAK/STAT3 pathways.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, which is characterized by inflammation, with many symptoms including diarrhea, abdominal pain, bloody stool, and weight loss. It is difficult to completely cure and promising therapeutic drug candidates are urgently needed. Citropten, a coumarin-like compound found in traditional Chinese medicine such as Finger Citron Fruit, notopterygium root and citrus peel, has been shown to inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells, protect against depression and suppress the production of inflammatory mediators. In this study, we demonstrated that citropten could alleviate dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced acute and recurrent colitis in mice, with significant improvement in body weight loss, disease activity index, shortened colon length and histological changes. Moreover, citropten dramatically decreased the production of pro-inflammatory mediators in colon tissues and effectively suppressed the proportion of Th17 cells in spleen. Mechanism investigations revealed that citropten significantly inhibited the activation of NF-κB and JAK/STAT3 signaling pathways, thus leading to decreased inflammation, Th17 cells and alleviative colitis. These findings provide novel insights into the anti-colitis effect of citropten, which may be a promising drug candidate for treatment of IBD.

Concise Total Synthesis and Antifungal Activities of Fusaric Acid, a Natural Product.

The total synthesis of a natural product alkaloid fusaric acid (FA), which exhibits herbicide, fungicide, insecticide and even diverse notable pharmacological activities, was accomplished in four steps using commercially available materials. The synthesis, based on a unified and flexible strategy using 6-bromonicotinaldehyde as a common intermediate, is concise, convergent, practical and can be carried out on a two-gram scale. This approach could be readily applicable to the synthesis of its analogues. In addition, FA had a wide range of inhibitory activities against 14 plant pathogenic fungi in this study, which demonstrated that as a leading compound, and it has great potential to be further developed as an agricultural fungicide.

Epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of infectious mononucleosis associated with Epstein-Barr virus infection in children in Beijing, China.

BACKGROUND: infectious mononucleosis (IM) is a self-limited disease, but a few cases may have severe complications. This retrospective study was to explore the epidemiologic and clinical characteristics of IM associated with Epstein-Barr virus infection (EBV-IM) in children. METHODS: hospitalized patients with EBV-IM were enrolled during January 2005 to October 2008 in Beijing Children's Hospital Affi liated to Capital Medical University. All patients were divided into four groups: <1 year (group I), 1 to 3 years (group II), 3 to 6 years (group III), and ≥ 6 years (group IV). The epidemiology and clinical characteristics were compared among the four groups. RESULTS: totally 418 patients were enrolled, with 245 boys and 173 girls. Fever, lymphadenopathy and pharyngitis were three main manifestations of the patients. The incidences of hepatomegaly, splenomegaly and rash were higher in the patients aged below 6 years, and with age increment the incidences lowered. In contrast, the patients aged <1 year had the lowest incidence of tonsillopharyngitis. The total white blood cell count was higher in the infantile group than in the other groups (P=0.038). The infantile group had significantly lower levels of serum alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase than the older groups (P=0.007 and P=0.012 respectively). The percentage of CD4(+) T cell subset decreased and the percentage of CD8(+) T cell subset increased with age increment. CONCLUSIONS: the incidence of EBV-IM peaked in children at age of 4 to 6 years in Northern China. Most of the patients had the classic triad of fever, lymphadenopathy and pharyngitis. Clinical symptoms, signs, laboratory findings and complications of patients varied with ages.

[Study on the serological diagnosis of Epstein-Barr virus among patients with mononucleosis].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) specific antibodies detection and the diagnoses of infectious mononucleosis (IM) caused by EBV. METHODS: Single serum samples were collected from 220 inpatients with the diagnosis of IM between January 2005 and December 2006 in Beijing Children's hospital. The samples were detected for EBV-CA-IgM, EBV-CA-IgG, EBV-EA-IgG, EBV-NA-IgG and the avidity of EBV-CA-IgG by indirect immunofluorescent assay. RESULTS: The positive rate of EBV-CA-IgG, EBV-CA-IgM, EBV-EA-IgG and EBV-NA-IgG were 100%, 95.9%, 79.5% and 4.1% respectively. Low-avidity EBV-CA-IgG was detected in 204 patients (92.7%) with positive EBV-CA-IgM and EBV-CA-IgG,negative EBV-NA-IgG, low-avidity EBV-CA-IgG were the main pattern of EBV antibody in IM patients (84.6%). CONCLUSION: The existence of EBV specific antibody (CA-IgG, CA-IgM, EA-IgG, NA-IgG and avidity of CA-IgG) could add more information to identify the stage of EBV infection so as to provide more reliable serological evidence for the diagnosis of IM.

[Genotype of wild-type measles viruses circulating in Beijing in 2003].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate genotype of wild-type measles viruses circulated in Beijing in 2003. METHODS: Throat swabs specimens were collected from patients seen during an outbreak of measles and from clinically suspected sporadic measles patients in 2003. Vero/SLAM cell lines recommended by WHO were used to isolate measles virus. Four hundreds and fifty nucleotides of COOH-terminal of nucleoprotein (N) genes were amplified by using PR-PCR. The amplified products were sequenced and the sequences were compared with references viruses from GeneBank. RESULTS: Eight strains of measles viruses were isolated from throat swabs of patients who came from seven districts and counties of Beijing. Sequence analysis of the 450 nucleotides of COOH-terminal of nucleoprotein (N) genes indicated that these 8 strains belonged to H1a genotype. The average genetic distances of these 8 strains to H1a genotype, Chin9322, H1b genotype, Chin9475 and H1c genotype, Chin9427, were 0.004 - 0.011, 0.026 - 0.031 and 0.015 - 0.022, respectively. The average genetic distances of these 8 strains to H1a genotype, Anhui 01 - 1/Anhui 02 - 2, were 0.000 - 0.009 (0 - 5 nucleotide variation). CONCLUSIONS: Major genotypes of wild-type measles viruses circulated in Beijing in 2003 were H1a genotype. The genotypes H1c, H1b and H2 may have disappeared in Beijing.

Astrovirus infection in young children with diarrhea hospitalized at Beijing Children's Hospital.

BACKGROUND: This study was to assess certain epidemiological and clinical characteristics of astrovirus infection in children with diarrhea below 5 years old hospitalized at the Beijing Children's Hospital. METHODS: From September 1999 to August 2001, a total of 288 children with diarrhea below 5 years old hospitalized at Beijing Children's Hospital were studied. Fecal specimens collected from each patient were tested for astrovirus by using enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and further serotyped by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using serotype-specific primers. RESULTS: Astrovirus antigen was positive in 9.0% of the patients, and the rate of coinfection with rotavirus was 19.2% among the astrovirus positive patients. The patients with astrovirus infection were at the age of 7 days to 17 months, most (92.3%) of them were less than 12 months. Astrovirus infection occurred mainly between October and March of the following year. Main symptoms included watery stool, vomiting, fever, and dehydration. Increased activity of myocardial enzyme was seen in 4 patients. Of the 22 astrovirus positive specimens, 14 were successfully serotyped by RT-PCR and they were all serotype 1. CONCLUSIONS: The overall incidence of astrovirus infection in young children with diarrhea hospitalized at the Beijing Children's Hospital was 9.0%. The predominant serotype was type 1. Astrovirus may play an important role in viral diarrhea in young children in Beijing, China.